BIGGLES AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

by Captain W. E. Johns

10. COLLINGWOOD TALKS (Pages 108 – 116)

“Topping the rise they were nearly swept off their feet by the wind and they were able to realize the full fury of it”. Reaching the hut, Collingwood tells Biggles and Algy to take a seat on some empty boxes. Biggles asks why the hut smelt of hashish last time he was there. Collingwood said he had toothache and pain-killing pills didn’t give much relief. Ali gave him a piece of hashish to chew. “It was hell. I only took a piece the size of a pea. I can’t tell you what it was like. I became a sort of spirit looking at my dead body lying on the bed. I thought I was going to die. Ali found me like that and gave me a dose of black coffee. Then I was as sick as a dog”. “Did it cure the toothache?” Algy asked. “More or less. But it left me with something worse. My head felt as if all the hammers of hell were thumping inside it. I was days getting back to normal. Why anyone should use the stuff twice is beyond me. I can only suppose that like tobacco sickness one gets over it. But no more for me. It has a smell that clings and I’ve never quite been able to get rid of it”. Biggles asks why Collingwood’s “Arab pal” was pulling up the crop by the roots. “He was uprooting all the male plants”. “Only the female plants produce the drug and even they won’t do it if there are any male plants near. With no males in the vicinity the females throw a short of film on the upper surface of their leaves”. “That’s the actual opiate”. Biggles asks how Ali will manage during the storm. Will he take cover in the cave? Collingwood’s eyebrows went up. “So you’ve found that, too. You have been busy”. “I’ve had a look round,” admitted Biggles. “That’s why I was sent here. What are you digging for? You might as well tell us because sooner or later we shall find out. You’ve told us so much, you might as well tell us the rest. It could save both of us a lot of trouble. If we can see eye to eye it should be to our mutual advantage”. “As we’re all likely to get our throats cut when the Arabs get here, and there are between twenty and thirty on board that dhow, perhaps you’re right,” conceded Collingwood. “We should do better to stick together”. “I don’t see why they should kill you because of something we did,” put in Algy. “They won’t stop to argue about that. They’ll be so mad they’ll probably murder Ali, too, for failing to protect the hemp. All right. I’ll make some coffee and tell you the whole story”. Collingwood serves coffee in cups with saucers. “Nice to see saucers again,” Algy said. “We dispense with such unnecessary luxuries when long-distance flying”. Collingwood says he was born in Australia and when he was a boy his father took him on a long trip in a truck across the country. They stopped at Cooper Pedy where men called gougers dig holes in the ground looking for opal. (The real life town of Coober Pedy, with a ‘b’ not a ‘p’ is a town 526 miles north of Adelaide, referred to as the “opal capital of the world” because of the quantity of precious opals mined there. The name comes from the Aboriginal term ‘kupa-piti’ which translates to ‘whitefellas hole’). Collingwood says opal is valuable but it isn’t popular because it’s supposed to bring back luck. He doesn’t know why such a rumour started. It doesn’t come in seams. One man may dig for a year and find nothing, a man two or three yards away may find thousands of pounds worth in a week. Opal is found chiefly in Mexico and Hungary, but Australian opal is the best. It is always translucent and glows with a living fire in its heart. As a child, at Cooper Pedy, he was given a little piece for luck and from that moment, his ambition was to become a gouger. However, Collingwood says he was sent to England to go to school and when the war came he joined up and chose the R.A.F. He was on heavy bombers and after injury in a crash landing he was sent to Bonney Island to convalesce as an officer in charge of a maintenance party consisting of a storekeeper, a cook, two radio operator mechanics and four fitter-riggers. They were sent to clear some ground for a landing strip with the help of a dozen Arab labourers from Egypt or Aden. Something struck the tin hut with a noise like a bullet. Came another, and then two or three more”. The large lumps of icy hail cause such a deafening noise that conversation is impossible. “Algy winces and put his hands over his ears. Biggles lit a cigarette”.